Examples

There was still strife in Ireland, for king fought with king, and heathen marauders still vexed the land; but many warlike Irish clans or "septs" turned their ardour for fight to religious conflicts, and often every man of a tribe became a monk, so that great abbeys and tribal monasteries and schools were built on the hills where, in former days, stood the chieftain's stronghold (_rath_ or _dun_, as Irish legends name it), with its earth mounds and wooden palisades.

Much of the land seems to have belonged to the various branches or septs of those families, and farmed by tenants: Bilbo Baggins, as head of the Baggins family, seems to have got most of his income (pre-Smaug) in this way.

He was adored by his own clan, whose advancement he had greatly studied, although he was in proportion disliked by the Highlanders of other septs, some of whom he had already stripped of their possessions, while others conceived themselves in danger from his future schemes, and all dreaded the height to which he was elevated.

Graff; the junior performed the humbler duties of ‘Frohner,’ or summoner; the remaining fourteen acted as the Echevins, and by them all judgments were pronounced or declared; When any one of these died, a new member was elected by the Priests, from amongst the twenty two septs or families inhabiting the Gau or district, and who included all the hereditary occupants of the soil.